Seventeen and Guilty
by FreelyBeYourself
Summary: Pavel Chekov is feeling guilty for what happened when Vulcan was destroyed. The way he sees it, he's the one who is at fault for the death of Spock's mother. It doesn't help matters that he feels self-conscious about his age, either. If only he had let a more experienced officer handle the transporter controls, he wonders, would Spock's mother still be alive?


**A/N: This takes place almost immediately after the end of the 2009 movie. Note: I'm horrible with accents, so I didn't even attempt to write Chekov's. Sorry. Please just pretend that I did.**

**I do not own Star Trek in any way, shape, or form and I never will. I just wrote this to get back in the practice of writing. **

_"Kid, how old are you?" _

_ "Seventeen, sir." _

_ "Oh, good, he's seventeen." _

Even if he lived to be a hundred and thirty, Pavel Chekov was certain that he would always remember that conversation. How could it be that such an insignificant, brief comment could weigh so heavily on his mind? And yet here he was, sitting in his quarters on the Enterprise, replaying that same, short conversation over and over again in his mind. _Seventeen._

He could use the transporter on moving, free-falling objects and beam them safely to the ship. He could come up with insane yet perfectly logical battle tactics. He knew almost as much about physics as Mr. Spock did, and although he'd never be as good an engineer as Mr. Scott, he was sure that he could at least take over Mr. Scott's job in a pinch if he had to. As if that wasn't enough, there was also the fact that he was the youngest Starfleet Academy graduate in… well, ever, actually.

So why was it that whenever he had something to contribute, instead of deliberating on the ideas that he'd brought to the table, the immediate reaction was, _"Kid, how old are you?"_

"Seventeen," Chekov scoffed at the wall as he sat on his bed. His eighteenth birthday was still over five months away, but the Ensign was more than certain that what he lacked in age he made up for in intelligence and work ethic. _You're only a kid, Pavel,_ his mind mocked him cruelly. _If you'd just let one of the adults handle the transporter controls, maybe Spock's mother wouldn't be dead. _

"That's not true!" Chekov stated out loud, the words coming out as an uncertain whisper. And yet, there was no denying that Spock's mother had, in fact, died, and that Pavel himself had been the one manning the transporter controls.

_If only you had stayed at your post where you belonged,_ the self-deprecating side of his mind snarled viciously.

"Yes, but if I had done that, the Captain and Hikaru would be dead!"

_Ah, but you don't know that,_ he internally disagreed. _The other, more qualified_ _members of the transporter team could have come up with the solution just as easily as you did. You're only a kid,_ _Pavel._

Unable to come up with a suitable counterargument to his thoughts, Pavel sighed and buried his face in his hands. It was the second day out of space dock at the start of the new crew's trial mission, and he was due to be on the bridge for his shift, but he wasn't sure if he felt like leaving his room and facing his fellow crewmembers. Maybe it was just his imagination, but everywhere he went on the ship it seemed like people were looking down on him. There were dozens of Enterprise officers of all ranks who had applied for the job of Navigator, and yet the Captain had chosen him to stay onboard in lieu of one of the older, higher-ranking officers. Pavel was sure that the older officers must have been jealous; he knew he probably would be, if someone less qualified had been given a job over him. He didn't want to deal with any criticism today, and for a fleeting moment, Pavel thought about calling up to the bridge and telling the Captain that he was sick and would not be able to make it for his shift. He sighed as he realized that this course of action would have Dr. McCoy at his doorstep faster than he could say 'April Fool's'. There was no getting around it; he was going to have to report to his post.

Pulling his gold shirt over his head, Pavel stepped out into the corridor and made his way towards the turbolift. He only ran into one crewman, another ensign who he was not familiar with on a personal basis. The ensign nodded respectfully and went on his way, and Pavel breathed a sigh of relief.

"Bridge," he announced as he stepped into the turbolift.

The lift doors opened a few seconds later, and Pavel made his way onto the Bridge. He quickly looked around at the other officers on duty; Uhura was at her communications post, and Hikaru was in the pilot's seat. Captain Kirk was in his chair, signing a stack of PADDs that a disgruntled-looking yeoman was waiting to deliver. Mr. Spock looked up as Chekov made his way to his seat.

"You are one minute and eleven seconds late, Mr. Chekov," the Vulcan informed him. Pavel winced slightly as he mumbled a hasty apology to his superior officer without meeting the man's gaze. As he slid into his chair, he thought he saw Hikaru shooting him a reassuring glance. The turbolift doors slid open again and Dr. McCoy entered as the yeoman left in a hurry.

Pavel listened with amusement as the doctor and Mr. Spock had one of their typical arguments. He had noted from the day of the Nero incident the Southern man did not get along very well with the Vulcan, and he could not deny that he was deeply curious to see where their relationship would go; would they become friends, or would they continue to be at each other's throats for the entire time that they served together?

Thinking about friendship made Pavel wince again. A few weeks had passed since Nero's ship had been destroyed and the Enterprise had limped back to Earth, but the emotional wounds of the deaths that had occurred were still hard to bear. Pavel hadn't really had many friends at the Academy because of the age difference between himself and most of his graduating class, but there had been a few people who hadn't minded his youth. One of these had been his roommate, who had been five years older than Pavel. He had been on the USS Faragut when Nero had attacked, and, like most of the Faragut's crew, had not survived.

Pavel took a moment to mourn for the loss of his roommate as well as all of the other cadets and officers who had died that day. He knew that Lieutenant Uhura had lost a close friend, as had almost everyone in the Security department; the Starfleet security officers all trained together in close quarters at the Academy, and everyone in that department knew almost everyone else's name.

The people who had died had all been men and women with lives to look forward to. They'd all had husbands, wives, children, mothers, fathers, friends, goals, dreams, plans…

_And so did Mr. Spock,_ the thought came out of nowhere, catching Pavel off guard. _Mr. Spock had a mother. You took that from him. You took his planet from him, too. If only you'd figured it out sooner, maybe you could have stopped Nero from destroying Vulcan. _

"I did not!" Chekov said firmly, forgetting briefly that he was on the Bridge. He cleared his throat, face burning red when he realized that all conversation had stopped. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Hikaru was staring straight at him, and Pavel was suddenly sure that the rest of the bridge was doing the same. Even Spock and Dr. McCoy had paused in their disagreement.

Captain Kirk chose that moment to address his navigator.

"Mr. Chekov," the Captain called. Pavel obediently turned in his chair to face the man he had grown to trust and respect. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, sir," Chekov answered, holding Kirk's gaze. "May I be dismissed?"

It was rather bold to ask permission to leave his post when he'd shown up late and had spent less than ten minutes there, but the words had already left his mouth and it was too late to take them back. Pavel held his breath the Captain furrowed his brow. After a long moment of contemplative silence, Captain Kirk answered his youngest crew member.

"You are dismissed, Mr. Chekov. Please report to the bridge for your next shift."

"Aye, sir," Chekov agreed, rising fluidly from his chair and trying to ignore the eyes that were boring holes in his back. The turbolift sealed him in with a whoosh, and Pavel gratefully collapsed against the wall.

"Good job, Pavel," he berated himself out loud. "You've made a real fool of yourself."

Ensign Chekov had fully intended to go back to his quarters and use his allotted once-monthly, honest-to-God hot-water shower (he hated the sonic showers, and always greatly looked forward to the monthly real shower he was allowed to have). Instead, as he got off the turbolift, his feet moved of their own accord, taking him to the transporter room. The technician on duty looked up at him suspiciously, but when he didn't try to take over the controls or beam himself into space, the woman relaxed in her seat and went back to reading whatever was on her PADD. Pavel sat on one of the transporter pads and closed his eyes, remembering back to when he had killed Spock's mother.

_"Don't move," he remembered shouting into the comm. "Don't move!" All the while, he kept up a stead mantra in his head: I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. He remembered counting down the seconds until the beam-out; remembered watching on the computer screen as one of the signal locks faltered. _

_"Don't move!" he'd shouted again, and then the computer readout informed him that the transportation was in progress, but that one of the signals had been lost; and yet he'd still held onto some hope that maybe the computer was wrong. And then, just as this hope had formed, the swirling white lights of the transporter caught his eye, and Spock was there, stretching out his arm towards an empty transporter pad, and there was no doubting it; no denying what had happened: he, Pavel Chekov, had been at the controls when someone had been lost. _

_"I've lost her," he said, the words echoing his thoughts. "I've lost her. I've lost her." It was his fault; he should have tried harder to lock onto her signal. He should have started the beam-out sooner. "I've lost her." _

_He remembered the look on Spock's face. The half-Vulcan hadn't seemed to blame Pavel, but how could he not? Pavel should have let someone older and more experienced take control in that situation. He should have let the transporter technician do her job, instead of trying to play the hero. Spock had lost his mother, all because Pavel didn't know how to save her. He should have given the job over to someone who knew what they were doing. _

Then, like a punch in the face, the other memory came back, louder than ever:

_"Kid, how old are you?" _

_"Seventeen, sir." _

_"Oh, good, he's seventeen." _

Pavel didn't know that he was crying, lying down on the transporter pad in a tightly curled ball, until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Pavel?" a woman's voice called. "Ensign Chekov?"

He tried to answer, he really did, but the guilt he was feeling was too fresh; the pain was too strong. He couldn't get the words out past the lump in his throat. He mentally kicked himself for showing his weakness; _look at you, Pavel, acting like the baby they're so sure you are. Good job proving them right._ The hand left his shoulder and Pavel whimpered, desperate for human contact. In the near distance he heard the same woman's voice.

"Transporter room to Bridge," the woman called. Pavel cringed.

"Bridge here, go ahead," came Uhura's response. Pavel closed his eyes at what he knew was coming.

"Ensign Chekov is down here," the woman said slowly, clearly hesitating as she tried to phrase the situation. Chekov was grateful to her for her tact. "He seems to be in a great deal of distress."

There was a brief pause, and Chekov, who liked Uhura very much, could almost envision the communication officer's look of worry as she considered how to reply. Uhura and Chekov had been in a few advanced weaponry classes together at the Academy during Uhura's first year, and although he had graduated two years ahead of the class of cadets who had been destroyed by Nero, the two had become friends; she was one of the people who didn't care about the age difference between Chekov and most of Starfleet's officers.

"Standby," Uhura commanded, and there was silence. Chekov imagined that Uhura was filling the Bridge in on the communication she had received from the transporter room. The silence was broken by Uhura's voice about thirty seconds later.

"Captain Kirk and Commander Spock are on their way down now," Uhura announced.

"Thanks, Nyota," the transporter officer said, relieved. "Transporter room out."

The idea of seeing Spock now brought Pavel close to panicking. Instantly he looked around, trying to find a way to make himself appear more dignified despite the evidence of tears and the fact that he had all but run from the bridge. Pavel sat up, regretting that he'd ever stepped foot in the transporter room, and then froze; he was sitting on the same transporter pad that Spock's mother would have – _should _have – materialized upon.

_I lost her,_ he thought again. _I lost her. I lost her._ It occurred to Pavel to move, but the thought had barely crossed his mind before the Captain and Mr. Spock were there, standing in front of him, watching him with identical expressions of surprise, concern, and uncertainty. Mr. Spock's expression became neutral as soon as Pavel met his gaze, but it was too late; the teenager had already seen.

"Ensign Chekov," Captain Kirk spoke, and Pavel's eyes automatically focused on him. "What's wrong?"

_There's a lot that's wrong,_ Pavel wanted to say. _I killed Spock's mother. I'm not old enough to be on this ship. I have no friends. People are jealous of me and I don't know how to deal with it. I didn't try hard enough to save Vulcan. I'm a failure._

"I do not think that I belong here," Pavel said instead, because explaining the other things to the Captain would have required words that Pavel didn't have, and in reality the other thoughts all amounted to the same thing, anyway: that he didn't belong on the ship because he wasn't good enough at his job.

"Don't belong here?" Captain Kirk repeated, and Pavel was startled to see that the Captain was genuinely confused. "What do you mean? Of course you belong here, kid."

At the word _kid,_ Pavel cringed.

"I do not belong here," Pavel shook his head. "You said it yourself, sir: I'm just a kid. I'm not old enough. No one wants me here. I'm no good at this."

The Captain's expression cleared a bit.

"Ensign, that's not true. You're part of the family. We want you here regardless of how old you are. You're a genius. What gave you the idea that you're not good at this?"

Pavel's eyes flickered to the First Officer, and Kirk followed his gaze. Pavel knew that the Captain was very intelligent, but it came as a huge surprise when Kirk's eyes moved from his first officer to the transporter pad that Pavel was still sitting on. The seventeen-year-old watched as the Captain connected the dots.

"It's not a coincidence that you came here of all places, huh?" Kirk asked, and Pavel had to swallow back a sob. "Pavel, you did nothing wrong. It wasn't your fault." Chekov heard the Captain's words, but kept his eyes on Spock. Spock was quick on the uptake, and upon hearing the tone of the Captain's voice, the Vulcan also looked around the room and came to his own conclusions.

"Indeed, Ensign, it was not," the First Officer agreed. The Vulcan took a step forward. Pavel flinched, lowering his gaze. Spock stopped moving but did not stop speaking. "Ensign Chekov, what happened to Vulcan was beyond your control. What happened to my mother was beyond your control. I know that you are more than capable of handling a transporter device. I can assure you that, even if I had been the one at the controls that day, my mother still would not have made it off of Vulcan alive."

Pavel's eyes flew up to meet Mr. Spock's.

"You… you do not blame me?" he asked the first officer warily. Spock gave an ever so slight shake of his head.

"I do not blame you, Ensign. I thank you for trying as hard as you did to save my mother, and I assure you that you bear no fault in the incident."

"I… oh," Pavel said, not sure what else he _could s_ay. "You do not think that I should leave the ship?"

"I am certain that if you were to leave the ship, your absence would be felt by all on board, Mr. Chekov," Spock stated, and if Pavel didn't know better he would have sworn that there was fondness in the Vulcan's tone. "You are a competent officer, as I am sure the Captain would agree." Coming from Spock, that was a compliment.

"He's right, Pavel," Kirk confirmed. "We want you here. Did you know that, when your desire to remain onboard as Navigator was made public after my Captaincy was announced, everyone else who had applied for the job suddenly withdrew their applications and chose instead to remain on the ship at their previous posts?"

This was news to Pavel.

"What?" he asked, shocked.

"Yes. Everyone felt that you were the best man for the job, and I certainly felt the same way, Ensign."

"But…" Pavel thought back to the times he'd seen – or thought he'd seen – his crewmates frowning down upon him. He'd interpreted it as jealousy, but had he been wrong?

"If you still want to leave the ship, I'll be sorry to see you go, but I can send in your resignation with my next log," Captain Kirk stated wryly. Pavel grinned.

"No, sir, that will not be necessary. I think I'd like to stay here, if that's alright."

"That would be most satisfactory," Mr. Spock answered, and Pavel smiled, feeling lighter and more grown up than he'd ever felt before. Maybe it wasn't so bad to be seventeen, after all. He followed Kirk and Spock out of the transporter room, smiling his thanks to the technician and leaving all of his guilt and uncertainty behind him.

** Okay, sorry for the corny ending. It's getting late at night and I couldn't really think of any alternatives because I'm getting tired. Oh, well. Thanks for reading. Feel free to review. **


End file.
